AI-Generated Images of Virat Kohli's Sand Statue Shared as Real on Social Media

Tools such as Hive and TrueMedia deemed the images as AI-generated.

A collage showing four images of a child posing with a sand statue of Indian cricketer Virat Kohli is being shared on social media platforms.

• Those sharing wrote that the image “shows beautiful artwork of the child.”

This post recorded 202K likes and 1.3K shares at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

Is this true?: The images have been created using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• AI detection tools such as Hive and TrueMedia both concluded that the images were AI-generated.

How did we find out?: At first, we noticed few discrepancies in the images. The flag's shape in the background is incorrect.

• Secondly, the word ‘Spoot’ on Kohli’s jersey was misspelt.

• We also noticed that a Facebook user, Ramesh Yadav's post's caption, used a hashtag 'photo editing challenge' was added.

• The user's profile was listed under the 'digital creator' category. We have reached out to the user for further inputs.

What did AI-detection tools says?: Tools such as Hive and True Media gave the following results -

Hive: It concluded that images are 100% AI-generated.

TrueMedia: It said that the images presented substantial evidence of “manipulation.”

Conclusion: It is clear that the images is AI-generated.

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